Empire!  The dreams of greatness increase:  some little military success has given Greece the idea also that the Treaty of Sevres is only a foundation regulating the relationship with the Allies and with the enemy, and constituting for Greece a title of rights, the full possession of which cannot be modified.  The War determines new rights which cannot invalidate the concessions already given, which, on the contrary, are reinforced and become intangible, but renders necessary new concessions.

What will happen?  Whilst Greece dreams of Constantinople, and we have disposed of Constantinople and the Straits, Turkey seems resigned to Constantinople itself, to-day a very poor international city rather than a Turkish city.  The Treaty of Sevres says that it is true that the contracting States are in agreement in not offending any of the rights of the Ottoman government on Constantinople, which remains the capital of the Turkish Empire, always under the reserve of the dispositions of the treaty.  That is equivalent to saying of a political regime that it is a controlled “liberty,” just as in the time of the Tsars it was said that there existed a Monarchie constitutionnelle sous un autocrate.  Constantinople under the Treaty of Sevres is the free capital of the Turkish Empire under the reserve of the conditions which are contained in the treaty and limit exactly that liberty.

The force of Turkey has always been in her immense power of resistance.  Win by resisting, wear out with the aid of time, which the Turks have considered not as an economic value, but as their friend.  To conquer the resistance of Turkey, both in the new territories of Europe and in Asia Minor, Greece will have to exhaust the greater part of her limited resources.  The Turks have always brought to a standstill those who would dominate her, by a stubborn resistance which is fanaticism and national dignity.  On the other hand, the Treaty of Sevres, which has systematized in part Eastern Europe, was concluded in the absence of two personages not to be unconsidered, Russia and Germany, the two States which have the greatest interest there.  Germany, the War won, as she could not give her explanations on the conclusions of peace, was not able to intervene in the solutions of the question of the Orient.  Russia was absent.  Worn out with the force of a war superior to her energies, she fell into convulsions, and is now struggling between the two misfortunes of communism and misery, of which it is hard to say whether one, or which of the two, is the consequence of the other.

One of the most characteristic facts concerns Armenia.  The Entente never spoke of Armenia.  In his fourteen points Wilson neither considered nor mentioned it.  It was an argument difficult for the Entente in so far that Russia was straining in reality (under the necessity of protecting the Christians) to take Turkish Armenia without leaving Russian Armenia.